Mercy Gilbert will oversee 24 labor-and-delivery rooms, 48 beds for mothers and an emergency room for obstetrics. Phoenix Children’s Hospital will handle the pediatric wing, which will include 50 beds, a 12-bed emergency department.
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Dignity Health and Phoenix Children’s Hospital plan a five-story hospital tower in Gilbert that will include two dozen labor and delivery rooms and an emergency department for pregnant women.(Photo: David Wallace/The Republic)

Dignity Health and Phoenix Children’s Hospital plan a five-story hospital tower in Gilbert that will include two dozen labor and delivery rooms and an emergency department for pregnant women.

Construction of the planned tower on the campus of Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, 3555 S. Val Vista Drive, is expected to begin in late 2018 and be completed by 2020, the two hospitals said. The hospitals would not disclose how much the new tower is expected to cost.

Mercy Gilbert will oversee 24 labor-and-delivery rooms, 48 beds for mothers and an emergency room for obstetrics. Phoenix Children’s Hospital will handle the pediatric wing of the hospital tower, which will include 50 beds, a 12-bed emergency department and operating rooms.

There also will be a 60-bed Level 3 neonatal intensive care unit. These units typically cater to infants who are extremely premature or ill and require surgery, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Both hospitals will staff their respective areas of the new hospital tower.

Dignity Health and Phoenix Children’s Hospital struck an alliance in 2011 that included Dignity purchasing an equity position at Phoenix Children's Hospital, which operates a 433-bed children's hospital in central Phoenix near Thomas Road and State Route 51. Phoenix Children's Hospital opened a 22-bed unit at Mercy Gilbert in 2014.

“By joining forces again on this East Valley project we will be increasing needed services provided to families," Linda Hunt, Dignity Health’s Arizona CEO, said in a statement.

The new move could provide East Valley families another option for advanced-level obstetric and newborn care.